Have your littles started compiling their not-so-little Christmas lists yet? How ironic is it that right in the middle of the month that we are focusing on gratitude and trying to teach them to be thankful for what they already have, everyone else is telling them it’s time to make that list and check it Continue »

Last week my children and I were visiting the doctor in a questionable part of town. (This doctor believes in caring for inner-city kids, which I love!) We were in a small strip mall, and I’d just loaded up all the kids when my 3-year-old daughter, Alyssa, noticed a man in a wheelchair approaching us. Continue »

Three years into our marriage, my husband and I lost our firstborn, a daughter we named Molly Ann, to a rare brain aneurism that we didn’t know about until she was born at 41 weeks. She lived a week and touched more lives than most do in a lifetime. Eleven months later we gave birth Continue »

It has been ten years since the day I taught my family how to love … and they never forgot it. You see I was weeks from delivering my third child and my belly was a big as a barn. It was becoming more and more difficult to pick up around the house, especially going Continue »

Valentine’s day is my favorite holiday. I don’t necessarily need to go out for dinner or get an expensive gift from my husband. In fact, I honestly don’t mind if we do anything at all. The reason I love Valentine’s day is because I love to stock up on all the heart shaped things that Continue »

My weekly “To Do List” has no space for interruptions. Yet there are times when guilt motivates me to make space. Last Fall our church leadership launched a series on generosity: “Give ‘til it Helps!” So appropriate for the holiday season, I thought. I could give money to a worthy cause, empty my closets of Continue »

“Oh, no — May is here,” the woman muttered as she stared at her calendar. “That means Mother’s Day is coming.” She sighed. “It’s the worst day of the year for me.” She shared that her daughter had been tragically killed in an auto accident many years prior. Although she has a son, Mother’s Day Continue »

Disappointment is an emotion I didn’t expect to experience on my first Mother’s Day. I had set my expectations a little high: breakfast in bed, pampering, long nap in the afternoon, glory and honor showered on me for my accomplishments in the first nine months of being a mother. Instead I woke up nauseous from morning sickness with Continue »

Why limit Mother’s Day to one day? Celebrate the sacrifices of the women in your life all month long. And this year expand your focus and see if there is a mom you can bless this month. Need some ideas? • Before Mother’s Day, take a single mom’s children for the day to give her a Continue »

Recently my husband John and I spoke at a FamilyLife Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway. We love speaking at these events, but by the end of the weekend, we are thoroughly exhausted. Because this particular event took place over Valentine’s Day weekend, we had arranged to stay an extra couple of days simply to rest and Continue »